Warcraft III: Reforged Development Insights with Game Informer

As part of their month long coverage of Warcraft III: Reforged, Game Informer's Ben Hanson and Dan Tack recently shared some insights from their trip to Blizzard Entertainment. In their show, they discussed a number of topics, including some history of Warcraft 3 development, the challenges of molding that into Reforged, and how that compares to remastering StarCraft. You can watch the full 18 minute talk, or read our synopsis below.\r\r\rYoutube's thumbnail is empty, but the video works just fine!\r\rThis post is part of our coverage of Game Informer's Month of Warcraft III: Reforged. You can check all our recaps below.\r\r Developer Insights\r Concept Art, Story Interview with Christie Golden and Justin Groot\r How Blizzard Created Warcraft III's Classic Cinematics\r Origins of Warcraft III - Concept Art and Music\r\r\rWhile a lot of talent, including many of the original voice actors have moved on over the years, one of the unique things about Blizzard is in how many of the "old timers" from the original development team remains with the company. Some of the most influential people, such as Darek Duke, who composed music for the Zerg music for StarCraft, or Samwise Didier, one of Blizzard's original artists, who originally came up with the name Warcraft (apparently based on his D&D character as the opposite of witchcraft).\r\rIt's fascinating to see how different game development was then compared to now. At the time, and with such a small team, everyone would do everything; there was no pipeline or hierarchy of development, people were assigned where they were needed, and one developer would work a project from start to finish, rather than it moving through a series of departments, as is more common today. There are downsides however, the small, less organized team led to a lack of old assets, recordings and art stashed in an old computer lost in a back room somewhere; they joked about randomly finding the Warcraft 1 source code on a shelf somewhere (and some fans might remember the story about a redditor who found the 1998 StarCraft source code in a box of Blizzard stuff bought off ebay last year). Moving from Warcraft 3 into World of Warcraft development was a turning point for the team of 30-something "really ambitious kids", who had to grow up once they realized they needed to figure out how continually supported game with a subscription service would work!\r\rWarcraft 3, then planned as Warcraft Legends, was originally much more RPG focused. By the time the decision was finally made to go full RTS, and a number of new team members brought on to see it to fruition, the design intent varied considerably. Depending on who you asked, there were originally as many as 13 different races planned, paired down to somewhere between 6 and 9. There were the original Orcs and Humans, but also Tauren, Trolls, Ogres, Demons, Centaurs, and some type of playable Demonic Infernal race that was almost entirely fleshed out. According to Samwise, there was even a concept Dragon race, consisting of a single unit with no buildings or base - just a dragon which would grow from a baby to adulthood (although he has no idea how far the concept got). Additionally, the Dwarves originally rode spider mounts, and Night Elves were paired with insects; needless to say, there was a lot of iteration from concept -> design -> production -> players, as the wide range of ideas was paired down to the four core races experienced in the final release.\r\rWarcraft III: Reforged is going under similar revision - less extreme, but no less extensive. The Culling of Stratholme started out much more brutal during its initial development; the townspeople never turned into zombies, and instead the mechanics pushed players to murder them while still human. In the Reforged version showcased at BlizzCon, the mission parameters haven't changed, but the map has been rearranged entirely. The player now enters the city head on over a bridge and the layout better reflects the city seen in World of Warcraft, using many of the landmarks and bosses from the Stratholme dungeon as characters during the mission. While this is a more pronounced example, the team isn't clear yet on how many campaign missions would be rearranged in this way, but want to go through them one by one to decide (The Fall of Silvermoon is similarly planned to be redone, but no others have been mentioned so far). There are also other ideas bouncing around regarding things which could be added, such as the cut final mission which took place after the destruction of the World Tree, that was ultimately removed from the original release due to feeling anticlimactic.\r\r\rSource: Dave Wilson\r\rWhile this may seem like a lot of unknowns, a big takeaway was that Warcraft III: Reforged is very much still a game in development. The writers have a rough first draft done, but not ironed out completely, and the Game Informer crew was only able to play as Orc and Human at that point. While the team is dedicated to a 2019 release, getting work to get the engine up and running alone took 6 months longer than expected; it's a mind bogglingly technical task - the Warcraft 3 engine was heavily modified to become the World of Warcraft engine, and now the WoW engine needed to be retrofit back into Warcraft 3 to update all of the visuals... but of course because it's Blizzard, the cool things is that they have the guy who originally built the WC3 engine 20-something years ago working on it!\r\rOther big changes include new character variants; female Death Knights, Demon Hunters, and Zombies, more hero options at the Town Hall, and more options for players overall. A big point is in modernizing the character models for future, "2020" audiences, with less cleavage and a more subtle character design. A key inspiration for that art direction is actually the Mists of Pandaria opening cinematic, which is seen as the end of the exaggerated World of Warcraft look - since then there's been more emphasis on realism, but the Warcraft III team loved the slightly cartoony look of big shoulders and the human's Popeye jaw; that's the look they're going for in Warcraft III: Reforged.\r\rThat ability to find a pleasing artistic tone which doesn't become outdated too quickly is seen as one of Blizzard's key strengths. Even though old World of Warcraft graphics are low res, the artistic style can still look good, which is something that helps the game stand the test of time. Not all games do this as well, some games try to be too realistic, which can look great at the time, but don't age well and quickly becomes outmoded. Even some of the oldest Blizzard games such as Lost Vikings and Rock and Roll Racing still retain their charm, despite being severely outdated by today's standards.\r\r\rThe Lost Vikings, 1992\r\rAs for what to remaster next, Blizzard isn't giving anything away, though Diablo is a community favorite, as are Warcraft 1 and 2. Remastering StarCraft was trickier than most people think; they actually need to make 2 games in order to remaster the one - new models and sprites weren't just redrawn, new high rez units were completely rebuilt in 3d to reuse in the future, and then a 2d version is made out of that for StarCraft sprites. It takes a weird, unexpected loop to get there.\r\rThe team also worked hard not to change much between StarCraft and StarCraft: Remastered. Taking a risk with Warcraft III: Reforged is a different task, and there will probably be a crowd angry that the game isn't a pixel perfect remake of the original, but while there are merits to both approaches one of the design intents of Warcraft III: Reforged is making it backwards compatible with Warcraft 3, so that fans can play together despite their preference. A big part of this decision is drawn from the community; during StarCraft: Remastered development, many fans were consulted, particularly in Korea where the game is still wildly popular, and they were adamant that the masterpiece not change. Warcraft is still very popular in China, and in consulting with the many fans, experts, and pro players, a recurring theme was the impact and flexibility of modding keeping the game relevant 10 years past the point fans may have otherwise stopped playing. Not everything will change entirely, though some things may be different. The script is a tricky point - the many taunts and jokes in the game are considered somewhat sacred, but they contain a lot of dated references, like *69 jokes, which might not carry much charm with a newer audience. All the raw audio will still be there, but casting is also being redone with World of Warcraft voice actors.\r\r\rStarCraft Original and Remastered comparison\r\rAlthough many changes will be made in Warcraft III: Reforged, something they hope remains is the passionate modding scene; map mods were always a hotbed in Warcraft 3, and hopefully new tools will keep that longevity and create new genres all over again. How long until someone recreates HotS in Warcraft?! As for genres, Blizzard has made a lot of them, Samwise even let on that Blizzard worked on a few fighting games back in the day, but they were "not really appropriate and never saw the light of day". As for Warcraft 4, Blizzard won't say, but the current topic of conversation is Warcraft 3; maybe Blizzard just can't count to 4 the way Valve can't ever make it to 3. That said, Blizzard Classic Games team is an exciting prospect, so far they're dissecting Blizzards best games, and at some point they're going to run out of old things to remake; by then maybe the experts of RTS will finally be ready to move on to Warcraft 4 - check back in 10 years!

Commentaires

Commentaire de Jerhomie

Recasting voices? Nooooo. I was happy when they still used the old Jaina in the Culling trailer. Please don\u2019t change War3 Sylvanas.

Commentaire de swepty

on 2018-11-10T20:38:03-06:00

Recasting voices? Nooooo. I was happy when they still used the old Jaina in the Culling trailer. Please don\u2019t change War3 Sylvanas.\r\rGrubby(ex-WC3, was working with Blizz during blizzcon for the announcement) put out after Blizzcon on his impressions of the game, he talked about them recasting voices, and that currently the plan is to have a toggle to swap between the old and new voices.

Commentaire de Skyrei

on 2018-11-10T20:42:14-06:00

Will the non-remastered version be free, I wonder?

Commentaire de SgtGrumbles

on 2018-11-10T20:43:27-06:00

Recasting voices? Nooooo. I was happy when they still used the old Jaina in the Culling trailer. Please don\u2019t change War3 Sylvanas.

Grubby(ex-WC3, was working with Blizz during blizzcon for the announcement) put out after Blizzcon on his impressions of the game, he talked about them recasting voices, and that currently the plan is to have a toggle to swap between the old and new voices.

Oh thank god. The original voices are fantastic.

It's like when they remastered Silent Hill and redubbed everything. It was aweful. It was all held back by one VA who wouldn't sign the contract to let his voice be used again (because konami wouldn't pay him, @#$% sucked), but eventually gave in because he knew it was what the fans wanted despite the loss of money.

Still sad SH3 never saw an un-redubbed version. :(

Commentaire de peach774

on 2018-11-10T21:18:16-06:00

Recasting voices? Nooooo. I was happy when they still used the old Jaina in the Culling trailer. Please don\u2019t change War3 Sylvanas.\r\rGrubby(ex-WC3, was working with Blizz during blizzcon for the announcement) put out after Blizzcon on his impressions of the game, he talked about them recasting voices, and that currently the plan is to have a toggle to swap between the old and new voices.\r\rOh thank god. The original voices are fantastic. \r\rIt's like when they remastered Silent Hill and redubbed everything. It was aweful. It was all held back by one VA who wouldn't sign the contract to let his voice be used again (because konami wouldn't pay him, @#$% sucked), but eventually gave in because he knew it was what the fans wanted despite the loss of money.\r\rStill sad SH3 never saw an un-redubbed version. :(\r\rPersonally, I really DO want to be able to hear Liam O'Brien as Illidan, or Laura Bailey as Jaina. I think there is an advantage to recasting, especially since many of the voice lines in WC3 lack any emotion. Not to mention, if I wanted to play WC3, I would go play WC3. A remaster shouldn't just be redoing the graphics, it should be an improvement over the original.

Commentaire de Archimtiros

on 2018-11-10T21:22:33-06:00

Recasting voices? Nooooo. I was happy when they still used the old Jaina in the Culling trailer. Please don\u2019t change War3 Sylvanas.

Grubby(ex-WC3, was working with Blizz during blizzcon for the announcement) put out after Blizzcon on his impressions of the game, he talked about them recasting voices, and that currently the plan is to have a toggle to swap between the old and new voices.

Yes, the talk was a little broken up at that point in the show, but that's presumably what was meant by retaining all the old audio, but also recasting with current voice actors.

Commentaire de Archimtiros

on 2018-11-10T21:25:42-06:00

A remaster shouldn't just be redoing the graphics, it should be an improvement over the original.\r\rIn a separate interview, one of the developers commented that's actually why it's being called "Reforged" rather than Remastered, because they're not simply enhancing the quality of the existing game, they're actually remaking it from the ground up and changing things along the way.

Commentaire de Darksora110

on 2018-11-10T21:55:01-06:00

A remaster shouldn't just be redoing the graphics, it should be an improvement over the original.

In a separate interview, one of the developers commented that's actually why it's being called "Reforged" rather than Remastered, because they're not simply enhancing the quality of the existing game, they're actually remaking it from the ground up and changing things along the way.

Are they going to show the Illidan and Arthas fight what it should have been? This is an opportunity that should be rekindled.

Commentaire de Ridsoellen

on 2018-11-10T22:00:05-06:00

Recasting voices? Nooooo. I was happy when they still used the old Jaina in the Culling trailer. Please don\u2019t change War3 Sylvanas.\r\rGrubby(ex-WC3, was working with Blizz during blizzcon for the announcement) put out after Blizzcon on his impressions of the game, he talked about them recasting voices, and that currently the plan is to have a toggle to swap between the old and new voices.\r\rOh thank god. The original voices are fantastic. \r\rIt's like when they remastered Silent Hill and redubbed everything. It was aweful. It was all held back by one VA who wouldn't sign the contract to let his voice be used again (because konami wouldn't pay him, @#$% sucked), but eventually gave in because he knew it was what the fans wanted despite the loss of money.\r\rStill sad SH3 never saw an un-redubbed version. :(\r\rPersonally, I really DO want to be able to hear Liam O'Brien as Illidan, or Laura Bailey as Jaina. I think there is an advantage to recasting, especially since many of the voice lines in WC3 lack any emotion. Not to mention, if I wanted to play WC3, I would go play WC3. A remaster shouldn't just be redoing the graphics, it should be an improvement over the original.\r\rThis should get a lot more recognition. The current VAs are incredibly talented and I wouldn't mind actually having them take the role over from the originals. Don't get me wrong, I loved the original VA as I grew up playing WC3 with it, but then again I really think that it could be a welcome improvement over the old one.\r\rStill the idea of having a sound option to choose between the two would probably be best, as not to offend diehard fans that would like to keep them as they used to be (and for the additional fluff as well).

Commentaire de rydabi

on 2018-11-10T22:02:51-06:00

A remaster shouldn't just be redoing the graphics, it should be an improvement over the original.\r\rIn a separate interview, one of the developers commented that's actually why it's being called "Reforged" rather than Remastered, because they're not simply enhancing the quality of the existing game, they're actually remaking it from the ground up and changing things along the way.\r\rAre they going to show the Illidan and Arthas fight what it should have been? This is an opportunity that should be rekindled.\r\rAn example they gave was having Arthas start his purge of Stratholme from the main entrance in the southern end of the city like he did in The Culling of Stratholme rather then a northern entrance like the original Warcraft map. So we can probably expect changes to the maps to line up more like they do in World of Warcraft for some of the changes, though i agree, seeing an Arthas vs. Illidan cinematic like they originally intended to make would be great.

Commentaire de durf24

on 2018-11-10T23:03:21-06:00

Boop

Commentaire de TheSpeaker

on 2018-11-10T23:48:59-06:00

Recasting voices? Nooooo. I was happy when they still used the old Jaina in the Culling trailer. Please don\u2019t change War3 Sylvanas.\r\rWC3 Sylvanas (Piera Coppola) was easily my favorite voice actor in the game - and as a bonus she's an awesome lady IRL. Unfortunately Patty Mattson is much more recognised at the moment because of Sylvanas' current storyline. If they're adding more detail to the stories and changing lines, I imagine Patty would be called in to record anything extra, and for the sake of consistency she'll probably redo existing lines too so it doesn't sound disjointed. \r\rNo disrespect to Patty though, she's also fantastic. I just prefer the voice of Sylvanas that I grew up with.

Commentaire de Joshmaul

on 2018-11-11T00:01:15-06:00

Are they going to show the Illidan and Arthas fight what it should have been? This is an opportunity that should be rekindled.\r\rAmen to that. Short as it ended up being, that's a fight that's got cinematic potential.

Commentaire de Spectrence

on 2018-11-11T01:12:21-06:00

Recasting voices? Nooooo. I was happy when they still used the old Jaina in the Culling trailer. Please don\u2019t change War3 Sylvanas.\r\rWhile I agree with you, do keep in mind that they may not have a choice if the original voice actors have moved on. There isn't much they can do at that point if they need new lines recorded, you know?

Commentaire de Silmafarion

on 2018-11-11T03:04:11-06:00

Will the non-remastered version be free, I wonder?\r\rI think they said you get it along with Reforged, but I'm not sure.

Commentaire de Azbott

on 2018-11-11T04:33:09-06:00

\r\rAre they going to show the Illidan and Arthas fight what it should have been? This is an opportunity that should be rekindled.\r\rAll of this!

Commentaire de ChaosDecides

on 2018-11-11T05:21:29-06:00

Are they going to show the Illidan and Arthas fight what it should have been? This is an opportunity that should be rekindled.\r\rAmen to that. Short as it ended up being, that's a fight that's got cinematic potential.\r\rAs long as they don't change the outcome.

Commentaire de Songoo

on 2018-11-11T05:26:37-06:00

Anyone win anything from Blizz Posts or wowhead's team again took everything?

Commentaire de Dreadmure

on 2018-11-11T05:29:04-06:00

why should I pay for the same game if I have 2 compact discs of Warcraft3_RoC and TFT?

Commentaire de MBcomrade

on 2018-11-11T06:13:42-06:00

By the time Half-Life 3 is made, there\u2019s no excuse Blizzard couldn\u2019t make it XD\r\rwhy should I pay for the same game if I have 2 compact discs of Warcraft3_RoC and TFT?\rYou don\u2019t have to, but if you want better graphics, improved cinematic\/cutscenes, better world editor, more variants like female Demon Hunter or random Paladin. Then you must buy it. They maybe the same game but one is obviously more improved for modern times than the other and they\u2019re not obviously going to give it for free despite all the development time they committed for this project.